In the Name of God the Compassionate

Dear colleagues and students

It is the last days of the year and the century. A century and a year whose end was strikingly adorned with the presence of a minuscule guest that bore great lessons. Exactly one year has passed since the appearance of this uninvited guest whose presence has affected all aspects of human life.

When coronavirus arrived, it quickly forced modern humans to enter a period of extreme settlement in one location, or in a sense, cave-dwelling. Although, unlike their cave-dwelling ancestors, technological progress allowed them to observe, through television or social media, the fate of those who had left their safe dwellings, by compulsion or through ignorance, and had been trapped by Covid-19 in streets and alleys.

The ecstatic and proud humankind who had gained longer life expectancy thanks to scientific progress was ever more greedily engaged in exploiting the natural resources. But covid disrupted all plans and suddenly, amid all the noise and hubbub of the twenty-first century’s technological progress, an extreme kind of fear engulfed their whole being lest they might be the next person who would fall. And in the wake of this extreme fear, many a city turned into ghost towns.

This widespread form of virtual communication, which has no doubt provided us with an effective tool both in education and in life, has never possessed the vitality and freshness of living together and next to each other. Covid’s period of imposed home stay may have reminded us, in short intervals, of the value of being together, but could it be that it would also result in changing our belief.

We should accept that the post-covid period will be quite different from the past, a period that will without a doubt have with it both the experience and memory of covid lethargy and nostalgia, and the added experience of rising anew and moving alongside covid. An experience that at the start of the new year and the new century will lead us more prepared and stronger than before to the celebration of true living together.

The post-covid society needs time to properly compare itself with and gauge itself against the pre-covid society in order to touch the lived experience that has blossomed in its subconscious and to enter it into its conscious. And maybe it is the university environment, with its self-purification and self-evaluation nature, that would be the society’s best companion on this mission.

We are so glad that we have passed these periods with all their difficulties and burdens, hand in hand. We should keep this joy alive more than ever before in our behaviour, in accentuating each other’s achievements, and as a beacon that would guide the path of progress that gives meaning to the IASBS.

Let us hope that we will be able to value this deep message of creation and the lived experience that comes after, especially the delight, vitality, and true joy of being together.

May the New Year and Nowruz be a blessing upon you dear ones and your respected families.

Babak Karimi

March 2021